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Poem by David Hill


Dressed for success

No, no. Germanic pop, not Anglo rock.
Not Rolling Stones, not Velvet Underground,
But Amsterdam's and Stockholm's ample stock
Of Dancing Queens; the Berlin Wall of sound;

Camp groups like Ace of Base – remember them?
Army of Lovers – how could one forget?
Or Two Unlimited, or Boney M,
Or Falco, Modern Talking, or Roxette;

And, to pronounce those broken English names,
With turquoise eyes, a spangly lipsticked kiss:
Tall Eastern girls. Mad glamour. Freedom games.
Forget the greasy earnest rockers' claims:
It's this that killed off Communism. This.

by David Hill
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Comments

Jonathan Wonham said…
The poet has a point. I visited Leningrad in 1989 and encountered many young Russians trying to sell their copies of 'Back in the U.S.S.R.' released only in Russia by Paul McCartney in 1989. I bought a copy and it became (almost) the worst record in my collection.

Russia's own offerings, coming as they did from underground, have a more lasting interest: Pop Mechanica for example, fronted by the superbly gifted Sergey Kuryokhin. When people heard his piano playing, they accused him of speeding up the tape. Not true. And that bit where he jumped inside the piano, that was good too...
Sat Jul 30, 10:25:00 am 2005
Jake Doyle said…
I do my best to avoid pop music except the pre-war (WWII) variety. The Velvet Underground are an exception and one of my few acknowledged great loves. Did lowbrow pop help bring down communism? It's a lowbrow world, is it not?
Sat Jul 30, 09:49:00 pm 2005
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